Twitter account of Foreign Minister briefly hacked

Manama : Hackers temporarily took over the Twitter account of the foreign minister yesterday, just 10 days after a cyber attack on the official news agency of neighbouring Qatar.

Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa tweeted he had recovered his account four hours after images of bloodied bodies, demolished mosques and what appeared to be a child’s illustration of war rolled down his official Twitter page.

The foreign ministry confirmed the account had been recovered Saturday and blamed the attack on a “terrorist group”, vowing to “hold accountable the individuals behind this despicable act”. 

The minister in his first post recovery tweet praised God and thanked all those who supported him.

Several followers hailed the reinstatement of the account and expressed solidarity with the minister.

The UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash posted: “Welcome back to the voice of serenity and rationality.”

Shaikh Khalid who joined Twitter in October 2009 is among the most avid and prolific Arab officials using the microblog. @khalidalkhalifa has more than 380,000 followers.

Saturday’s hackers tagged their posts with the name and logo of Saraya al-Mukhtar.

The hackers retweeted a number of posts by Numur al-Hurriya (Tigers of Freedom), which purports to be an opposition group in the Qatif district of eastern Saudi Arabia.